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PROVERBS IN SPAIN

FOR ALL OCCASIONS The newspapers arc full of news from Spain: the names of Navarre and Galicia, of Andalusia, Cntalonia, of Murcia, Valentin, Castile, and Arragou loom large. The country is full of pithv proverbs and sayings (says an Australian weekly). “Hope a good breakfast, but a bad supper.” Jn Spain a task- is begun lute in the day, and never finished at all at least so adds a commentary. “No short cuts without hard work,” is common to other countries as well; “ four eyes see better than two ” is a recommendation for travelling companionships. When it comes to food, “ one mouthful of meat is worth 10 of potatoes.” It was Saucho Pnnza, a typical Spaniard, who said, “ All sorrow./ are alleviated by eating bread.”

There are many old food and travel maxims in Spain: “Bread, wine, and raw garlic make a young man go briskly; for every man that is robbed on the road 100 arc in the inns.” There are cookery mysteries. In one inn they are accused of selling a skinned cat for a bare. On the road, an Englishman

whistles, a Welshman sings good music, but the Spaniard, compelled to tramp, performs doleful dirges:-—■

If we join in doleful chorus, The dull highway will less boro us,

That keen traveller, Richard Ford, who covered 2,000 miles of Spanish road and city, recorded many things which have not changed. The Spaniard is still morbid and touchy in national matters. When the foreigner, in Gibraltar or elsewhere, does not comprehend the intricacies of Spanish politics, “ you don’t understand us, I guess,” is a philosophy which covers all faults. The trouble is the next Spaniard gives an entirely opposite view of society and politics, and the third and fourth man are ranged differently. A compass rather than a sketch map is necessary.

“ No country in the 'world can vie with Spain,” where the dry climate is a preservative of houses, towers, turrets. and balconies, “ so old that they seem only not to fall into the torrents and ravines over which they hang.” Hero is every form and colour of picturesque poverty; vines clamber up the irregularities, while below naiads wash their red and yellow garments in the glorious sunshine. One party tells ns that the landed proprietor in Spain is still little bettor

than a weed of the soil that he has never observed, nor scarcely permitted others to observe, the vast capabilities which might and ought to be called into action. Only in actual time and place of strife and rebellion should the land go without cultivation, yet most Spanish soil is in a state of dilapidation. The natural produce of vine, olive, lemon, fig, pomegranate, sugar, orange, and aloe is as superabundant as native labourers, and operators are inattentive and indifferent. The natives are said to be more fond of regarding Spain as a land of buried treasure, of burying their talent in a napkin, and then falling foul of the foreigner, who turns their land to richer and fuller account by the display of bodily energy and mental foresight. In Spain one arithmetical fact can only be reckoned on with moderate certainty. Let given events be represented by numbers; then two and two may at one time make throe, or possibly five at another. The odds are-'al-ways four to one against two and two making four. Another safe rule about official numbers: whether from Madrid or elsewhere, “ 5,000 killed and wounded ” is evasive. Deduct two noughts always, and sometimes three. Fifty may be too large an estimate, and five too .small. “ Where any par-

ticular herb grows there lives the ass who will eat it.” Official communiques are food for asses. The Spaniard, like men of other nations. has the final proverb. “ There is a remedy for everything except death.”

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ESD19361007.2.27

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Evening Star, Issue 22463, 7 October 1936, Page 6

Word count
Tapeke kupu
637

PROVERBS IN SPAIN Evening Star, Issue 22463, 7 October 1936, Page 6

PROVERBS IN SPAIN Evening Star, Issue 22463, 7 October 1936, Page 6

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